


Night Crossing

by sixpences



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-17
Updated: 2007-06-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 02:37:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixpences/pseuds/sixpences
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quiet night in Shipwreck Cove, towards the end of winter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Crossing

_Tie your heart at night to mine, love,  
and both will defeat the darkness  
like twin drums beating in the forest  
against the heavy wall of wet leaves_  
\- Pablo Neruda

They sleep in the sky, a nest of a room at the very pinnacle of the great sprawling structure of Shipwreck Cove. One wall is hung with maps, the tiny details of Madagascar and Cape Horn picked out in Jack's delicate inks, and the stairs and passageways of the Cove by Isaac's wobblier hand. The posts of the bed don't match, oak and ebony and woods in between, but the printed cotton draped about them still feels enough for her royal finery.

Jack is as patchwork as the blanket that covers them both. Her hands move through the tangled strands of his hair, past every story and half-truth that's woven into them, loose threads in a tangled tapestry. His own palms are warm against her skin, time-worn fingertips tracing her stretchmarks and scars, and he smiles as if she's told him a secret. Her hand seems to fit so easily against the bone of his hip, the faded blue lines of the octopus that crawls around it tangling about her own callused fingers.

It's never quite like the first time, stumbling and fragile, breathing too loud in the dark while Teague sang Isaac to sleep floors below, but there's that same sense of rightness about his mouth against her breast, her hands on him, the tangle of their limbs in the mess of sheets. Time brings knowledge, if not wisdom, and she knows that hitch in his breath, knows that strangely focused look in his eyes that slides into a feline grin, his own hand slipping down to draw her over the same precipice, the same star-spilled fall. She's filling in her own map, moment by moment, lines drawn in layers of memory and love.

After, she lies with her head resting over his heart, the soft wing-like beat an answer to her own. Beneath the mattress, locked away from prying eyes, there is a third echo, a memory of different scars and a body missing from their bed. The ache never leaves her, even if it dulls at the edges, and the night is always cold beyond the warmth of the blankets and the comforting whisper of the sea.

Jack's hands are restless, still, tracing lines across her shoulder and down the ridges of her spine. She slides a lazy arm across his stomach, listening to the low sound of waves in the distance.

"Not long left in the winter now," she murmurs.

He pauses in the drawing of an 'S' shape against her shoulder blade. "You know I can't come with you to Singapore, love."

"Mmm." He's right enough; the Pearl's in need of a decent new mainmast, and Isaac's still a little too young for a voyage that long anyway. And there's also the small matter of Tai Huang and the incident in the bath house the last time Jack accompanied her to the city... but still. The Dutchman has no time for such detours, and it's a long journey to sleep alone. "I wish you could."

"If wishes were fishes we'd eat even more of the bloody stuff than we do already." Jack clears his throat, mock-stern. "Can't you get us some better grub, your majesty?"

"Kings don't cook," she replies tartly, prodding him in the side. He chuckles quietly, and after a moment begins stroking her hair rather absent-mindedly with one hand. The silence falls softly around them.

Eventually, his movements begin to slow, and she shifts up to share the pillow, warm with patchouli-scent. His eyes are sliding closed, clean of the kohl but still darkly beautiful in the time-worn lines of his face. His breath flutters against her skin.

"Bring me back a nice souvenir, then."

She closes her own eyes, safe here at least, in this magpie's bower. "All the riches of China, Jack."

He smiles. "Sounds nice. Very... very nice."

Sleep steals in, high atop a hundred ships long gone to their grave, and Elizabeth dreams of rainfall in a far away forest, of slow drumbeats in the dark, and a fire that burns on long into the night.


End file.
